May 16 I don't Hate the Royals (I just don't see the Point)

When I told colleagues and friends that I would be in the UK this week, they all came to the same conclusion: “Are you going back for the Royal wedding?”. Although I might question how well these people know me, I can’t blame them for thinking that I would make a pilgrimage back to Windsor to pay my respects to the happy couple. After all, I’m British. In German minds, the British love many things; football, beer, tea at 4 o’clock, but most of all the British love the Royal Family. This may appear to be a generalisation, but during my time in Germany, I have fielded the Royal question more than any other. Whenever I have been asked to give my opinion about the Royals I feel conflicted, not over whether I like them, but over whether it is worth bursting the bubble of someone who sees the British and more pointedly the English as loyal subjects of the Queen. As Katja pointed out in Monday’s guest blog, I am not shy about sharing my feelings on the Royalty. They are as redundant as a Bakelite VCR.

However, expressing this opinion is unpopular with the Germans and apparently everyone else. It often seems that not only do the British adore the Royals (upwards of 76% according to recent polling), but all other nations do to. They admire the Queen’s longevity; her stoicism and I’m assuming her hats. For the non-British, the Royals are glamourous representatives of what it means to be British, and as Katja observed they are symbolically important. The Queen is the head of the British state, she asks the Prime Minster to form governments and she greets world leaders. A meeting with the Queen lends legitimacy in a way that few other countries can really offer, given the required lavishness, ceremony and protocols that go with any state visit. When it was announced that President Trump would be visiting the UK, there was a public discussion about whether he should have an audience with the Queen. For some British politicians, obsessed with Britain’s “special relationship”, the meeting between Elisabeth II and Donald Trump could only reinforce ties across the Atlantic.

Symbolic power is one thing, but one of the other possible reasons that the Royals seem to have unwavering support around the globe is that they a merely figureheads. The Queen and by extension her family are a benign curiosity of the British. They open supermarkets, support charities and wave professionally from gilded carriages. They are fun, an object of low level gossip or fashion tips. My dislike of the Royal Family is therefore perceived as petty or misguided. I am a curmudgeon and a pedant, picking apart a perfectly nice, innocent quirk of history. Worse, in some quarters of Britain I would be labelled anti-British, a self-hating Englander who only wants to do down our scepter'd isle. I don’t really think I am any of these things, but I suppose in the end, you will be the judge.

Britain has increasingly been criticised for its draconian surveillance laws and again, the Royal family are here to represent this aspect of Britishness. There is surely no family more observed than the Windsors, whether engaging in some harmless Nazi cosplay or sunbathing topless, tabloids at home or abroad can be relied on to fall over themselves to grab voyeuristic images of them. As Megan Markle has surely realised following the reporting on her father, you don’t even need to be a Windsor to face the full force of some of the lowest scum working in hack journalism today.

Barring the unpredictable, it is unlikely Britain will ever dispense with the Royal family, just as it is unlikely that Britain will suddenly become a utopia of acceptance, fairness or racial harmony. Commentators can declare this weeks wedding represents change, and maybe there is some truth in that. Yet, I doubt it will be the real change that the UK desperately needs. Others declare a new chapter of the modern Royal family, I would imagine than modernity has no place for hereditary privilege, but then again, I’m just a curmudgeon.

English & Intercultural trainer, English language blogger based in Germany since 2011. Founder of 40% German, Nic focuses on explaining German and UK culture, looking at the little details that are often misunderstood or misrepresented by both the British and the Germans

English & Intercultural trainer, English language blogger based in Germany since 2011. Founder of 40% German, Nic focuses on explaining German and UK culture, looking at the little details that are often misunderstood or misrepresented by both the British and the Germans